The Dog Department: James Thurber on Hounds, Scotties, and Talking Poodles

Youngmi Mayer (Author)

I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying: A Memoir

5,Elle's Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 The Boston Globe's Best Books of 2024 San Francisco Chronicle's Best New Books of Fall 2024 From standup comedian Youngmi Mayer, an unforgettable memoir written with "raw, enviable freedom that simply floors you," interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America, navigating a tumultuous childhood in Korea and Saipan, and coming to terms with her parents' shortcomings (Michelle Zauner). "Do you know what happens if you laugh while crying? Hair grows out of your butthole." It was a constant truism Youngmi Mayer's mother would say threateningly after she would make her daughter laugh while crying. Her mother used it to cheer her up in moments when she could tell Youngmi was overtaken with grief. The humorous saying would never fail to lighten the mood, causing both daughter and mother to laugh and cry at the same time. Her mother had learned this trick from her mother, and her mother had learned this from her mother before her: it had also helped an endless string of her family laugh through suffering. In I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying, Youngmi jokes through the retelling of her childhood as an offbeat biracial kid in Saipan, a place ...

Gabe Henry (Author)

Enough Is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell

2,A brief and humorous 500-year history of the Simplified Spelling Movement from advocates like Ben Franklin, C. S. Lewis, and Mark Twain to texts and Twitter.Why does the G in George sound different from the G in gorge? Why does C begin both case and cease? And why is it funny when a philologist faints, but not polight to laf about it? Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to write in English has, at one time or another, struggled with its spelling.So why do we continue to use it? If our system of writing words is so tragically inconsistent, why haven't we standardized it, phoneticized it, brought it into line? How many brave linguists have ever had the courage to state, in a declaration of phonetic revolt: "Enough is enuf"? The answer: many. In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational. This book is about them: Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C. S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others on both sides of the Atlantic who, for a time in their life, became fanatically occupied with writing thru instead ...

Michael Howe (Author)

Terrible Maps: Hilarious Maps for a Ridiculous World

4, The joys of the world, one terrible map at a time - this is the ultimate gift book for the budding geographer or anyone who wants to have a laugh. Ever wondered about the average jean colour across the United States? Or what 'pedestrians' look like in Denmark? What unites Brokenwind, Upton Snodsbury and Crackpot? And have you ever tried to take a train in Antarctica? Well Terrible Maps is the book for you! Put together by the creator behind the tremendously popular social media feed, this is the ultimate humour book for the budding geographer in your life. From countries that eat their national animals to nations that have declared war on birds (and lost), Terrible Maps celebrates pointless cartography in all its glory. Don't leave home without it!